Jewish Museum thrown £250k lifeline in government’s cultural rescue package

The Jewish Museum has been thrown a £250k lifeline as part of a rescue package for creative organisations, which allows it to partially reopen after months of pandemic-enforced closure.

This comes after cultural groups warned they were “staring down the barrel of deep financial ruin” without government help at the start of the coronavirus lockdown in March.

Its chair, Nick Viner said the team “has delivered an extraordinary programme of virtual events throughout lockdown and will continue to do so.”

Thanks to the funding boost, he said “we can now move to our first stage of reopening: we will welcome priority groups back into the museum”, with a focus on educational activities.

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said: “Over the last six months the museum has achieved engagement numbers of over 50,000 through its innovative Virtual Classrooms for schools programme”, and other initiatives.

In February of this year, the Jewish Museum parted ways with its former chief executive and pulled out of the Arts Council England’s National Portfolio until 2022, from which it receives £220,000 per year. It announced a bid for a “new direction” and said it would “review its business model”.